Halloween Treats!!

It just must be something about being born on Halloween that requires that you make the BEST Halloween food! Carrie continues to outdo herself with her Halloween food prep. I am a bit concerned however that everything seems to be in the 'finger' or this year, 'toe' theme.

Hum.....carrots for fingers?
It worked!

Then her bread creation of fingers and toes!!
Her first making of bread, with yeast and everything!
They were DELICIOUS!
Reminded me of one of my favorite movies - Sweeney Todd

I stole an idea that Meme used several years back.
Lime Jigglers - for Rat Bait!

Then the Eye Balls!!
Sue Ann made some with cheese centers and tomato casings
They were AWESOME!

Carrie's creation involved doughnut holes and life saver gels!
Very cute!

What's Halloween without Swamp Water Punch!!
(See the recipe on Exercised Finished)
It is AWESOME!
You get use to the fleas!



Here's Mike during clean up.
He apparently likes to be blog fodder!
Mike, you play nice with Aragog!

Happy 88th Birthday!!

Leo Greco!!

I LOVE LEO!!!

Okay, so if you don't know who he is, he a radio personality.
He's on WMT 600 AM every Sunday Morning!!!
He tried to retire once, about 8 years ago.
It's lasted about 2 weeks!!

Leo plays "oldie" (real oldies) music.
It use to be a lot more polka, but he's branched out.
He's so fun to listen to, you can't help but smile.
Okay, maybe it's because I grew up with him!
(He's just a titch older than me!)

"Okie Dokie"

Leo....this song is for you!!!



Today I'm thankful for the sunrise at 6:30!!
Nice to see some daylight earlier!!

Entomology - Do Bugs Bother You??

I was REALLY looking forward to this part of the campus visit. I had visions of picking up large scary cockroaches and tarantula's crawling up my arm. Millipedes taking a nap in the palm of my hand. Well, you get the picture. By now you're either really excited, or totally grossed out and looking for another blog to read. I was one of those kids that had a butterfly collection and tossed poor helpless grasshoppers into the garden spider's web. SORRY!!!!!

The Lecture was very interesting and I enjoyed it. I was SO looking forward to the "Lab". Alas, I was disappointed. Although they had these bugs present, we didn't get to hold any of them. I did get to 'stroke' a giant Millipede, but lets face it, it's NOT the same. Yes, I'm also the one that gets bitten by the rats at the pet store! Bill is the one that reads the sign that says, "These rats bite". Hum......

During the lecture there was much discussion regarding the Japanese Beetle and the Multi Colored Asian Beetle. (Both pictured below) Many people use these names interchangeably as the same insect. I know I sure have! So, now you know they are two different insects and don't remotely resemble each other!!

Japanese Beetle - Eats LOTS of plants.
Favorites are the Rose, flowering crab apple, flowering cherry,
Japanese maple, linden, elm, viburnum, Virginia creeper, grape.
They don't have any known 'good' qualities.
I personally think their coloring is rather pretty.

Picture credits below -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jbadult.jpg

Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle
This insect is GOOD.
Even though they do tend to bite! OUCH!!
They also STINK when you try to get even for the bite.
I find that the good old finger flick is your best defense.
They eat the aphids off the soybean plants, so they are good!
They also leave the fields in September or October to find warmer
places to hide. This coincides with harvest. GO FIGURE!

Okay, now on to the pictures of the bugs we got to play with.

Manduca Moth

I'm pretty sure I had one of these behind glass
when I was MUCH younger!

Where did it come from?

From the Pupa of course!
It's quite amazing how a caterpiller
can turn into a moth or butterfly.

Below are some tiny little Tomato
Hook Worms hatching. They will
turn into those HUGE caterpillars that can
clean a tomato plant of it's leaves in a day.
They'll also eat all their 'siblings'!

Here's a fun type of walking stick.
Not the kind we see in our area.

Finally, the millipede.
It was the size of my pinkie finger!!
AMAZING!!!!

Well, that's the end of the Tour!

Until next time....today I'm thankful for all the chocolate I ate at work!!

A Break From the ISU Tour......

Tomorrow night I promise to do the "Bug Post"!!!

Every thing is amazing no body's happy

Watch this clip, it is pretty funny!! We take so much for granted anymore!! We don't sit back and just enjoy life!! I'm the same way!! I enjoy a sunset for about 3 minutes TOPS and then I'm back to working on something else!

I could only DREAM - 20 years ago of being able to talk
to my friend all the way to her house!!
Now, you can't walk into a store without seeing half a dozen cell phones.
I'll be honest, I don't have a 'real' cell phone, I have a tracker for emergencies.
Who are all those people calling?
Do they people they are calling NOT have a job?
People at work on constantly checking their phones.
Really, if it was a true emergency, do you NOT think someone would find you?
Ring Ring.....I'm in the women's bathroom, stall 3, need toilet paper!!
It's probably just me!

Do you remember Crank windows in your cars?
No Power Steering?
Actually needing to look and read a MAP!!!
Needing to be "HOME" to watch your favorite show or you REALLY missed it!!
The only channels you had were 2/7/9 and 12!!
FM Radio!!
8-Track and Cassettes!! I still have a BUNCH of 80's music on cassettes that I just can't seem to part with! I can't even play them in our vans!!

I often wonder how many hours are wasted while people at work "cyberslack"?
We didn't have Internet available to all our employees until 2003.
How much more productive were we then?
Did we know our co-workers better?
Did we have better social skills?

Anyway, watch this clip.
(From Susan Garrett's site)
You might realize how spoiled we really are.

I'm also going to copy what she does at the end of her posts.
Something you're thankful for, there's truly so much!



Today I'm thankful for my co-worker who
brought in a bunch of pumpkins to give away!

Green House Tour

Did you guess?

It's a Carrion Flower!
It's very pretty, however smells like rotten meat!
Yes, I had to smell it!!
Yes, I was the only one 'stupid' enough to do it.

During our first "Lab", which was on Botany, we got on of these handy
dandy little magnifying glasses.
I was really impressed as it wasn't even made in China!!

Here's Karen from "Linn" County. She's under the HUGE Banana Tree.
They said sometimes it even has bananas.
Sorry Karen, you'll just have to go hungry!

Here's a 'Pitcher Plant'.
It's a carnivorous plant.
Flies or crawling insects enter and fall into a pit.
Never to return.

Yes, I wanted to stick my finger in it!
I didn't!

This is a HUGE upside downy hanging, crawling plant.
I don't know what it is, but as we say back home,
"It sure be Purdy".

What's a green house without Orchids?
There pretty, but look like WAY too much work for me!

Here's a "Iron Cross Begonia" for Martha.
This one is made in china!

Below is a gigantic Lemon.
You can see the 'normal' sized lemon on the branch to the right.

Off to Bessey Hall to learn about plant diseases!

Next time onto Entomology - AKA the study of bugs!

I'm sure you're wondering if people were looking at me kind of funny taking all these pictures.
At first I think they were, then I think they wished they would have brought there's!

ISU Visit

Saturday the Master Gardener Interns, "that would be ME", visited the ISU campus to attend classroom training and tour the ISU Greenhouses. I would estimate that over 70 "Interns" were present and the ISU staff made us all feel welcome.

I was obviously early, go figure!! It was a beautiful morning, so I took a walk about the campus.

I made a squirrel angry! I don't think that's difficult.


Here's the horse barn. Hum....I wonder how I ended up over there??

Our First class was on plant reproduction. We used Snapdragons and Gladiolas.
Here's my co-intern's flower!
OUCH!
I pressed mine in my book! G

Discussion involved what to add to your planting soil for best overall results.

The Greenhouse Tour was WONDERFUL!!! More on that tomorrow.

Here's a picture of one of the more interesting plants.

Do you know what it is??

Rilda's First 5 K!!!!!

Rilda participated in her very first 5K on Saturday!!

WAY TO GO RILDA!!!

Not only did she FINISH!!! She placed 2nd!!!!

I was actually entered, but my Master Gardener visit to ISU
(Iowa State University),
was this day as well. More on that later.
Rilda kindly stepped in for me.

It was a cross country event, and with Halloween just around the
corner, the event included 'custom contests'.

The event is called the "Muddy Monster Run" and
features Frankenstein's face as their logo.

It used to be called "The Devil's Dash", do to "PC" issues,
having nothing to do with your home computer, they changed it.

Truthfully, the Muddy Monster Logo is cuter! (':

Here are some costumes!



Rilda's Favorite shirt of the day!!

THE BIG FINISH!!!!

Way to go Rilda and MEME!!! I'm so glad you had a nice morning!!!
You both did AWESOME!!!!